Blog

It’s summer time and Conation Collective is in full swing! We’ve been riding, camping, developing product, brainstorming videos, going to events, and riding some more. It’s impossible to go over everything we’ve been doing the past few weeks, so let’s hit a couple highlights.

Riding
This is pretty obviously the best part of summer in Colorado. The snow has been melting out, the weather is perfect for camping, the days are long, and there’s so many trails to ride. We’ve been pedaling all around – in Winter Park, Breckenridge, Nederland, even gotten dizzy a few times looping Betasso outside Boulder.

We rode down in Buffalo Creek a couple times, once tagging along with one of the Cannondale reps who showed us an awesome 25-mile ride when we had originally planned on just going out for an hour-ish. Good thing we had stuffed the Off-road Bib Short pockets with enough food to last.

There’s no better way to make new friends than getting lost in the woods together, so we’ve been getting out and riding as much as possible.

VanLife

The Westy continues to roll along, though it’s always a surprise. Two weeks ago we put a new rear bumper on that has a built in receiver hitch so we can carry bikes much easier. It also means we can fit more friends in for Vanagon Shenanigans!
We’re half way through installing a new stereo this week. As long as we can bump some tunes camping on 4th of July, it’ll be a success. And pretty soon we’re hoping to bolt on new 16″ rims that will be a little more reliable when we’re off-roading into secluded camp sites.

The graphic wrap is coming. Think you’re really going to like it, check back for updates soon.

Planning
We have some awesome things in the works for the next 4-6 weeks. We’ve teamed up Guerrilla Gravity, Shredly, and some other companies to highlight American-made craftsmanship, we’ve been developing some new products, and there’s so many more awesome adventures to have this summer.

So pull on your favorite piece of Conation apparel, or pick up a new favorite, and we’ll see you out on the trails!

Last weekend we posted up at the Colorado Bike Expo. Billed as the kickoff to the cycling season in the state, they may have wished the weather forecasters took them a little less literally.
Friday night was freezing cold, but since the expo was so empty it provided a nice chance to go hang out with other industry folks who we haven’t met yet, and check out the crit race that was looping around the west side of the expo. Our friend George, who’s been indispensable in the drafting and prototyping process, even took a break from creating his personal form-fitted alpine pants to say hi and grab some food.Saturday was waaaaaay better. The sun was out, there were people to talk to, Conation Collective was even part of a fashion show. It wasn’t judged, but we’re just gonna say we won.

The only downside was that the Vanagon clutch completely failed and we couldn’t move it from where we parked overnight to be situated in the designated booth space. Apparently parking on an incline with low levels of clutch fluid is a bad idea. The organizers were super cool though and let us stay where until we could top off the fluid and get the van working again. That thing sure keeps us on our toes!

Hope you got to swing by and check out some clothes in person. If not, look for us at the next event!

Lucky Bikes is a bike shop, job training course, center for at-risk youth, and community hub in Denver. Last Saturday they had their Friendraiser – a mashup of a fundraiser and community party – in the parking lot in front of their shop.

Not to get overly personal, but I think what Lucky Bikes is doing is super cool. I started working in a bike shop when I was 15 and that community was a large part of my upbringing. So much of what I value today, who my friends are, and how I spend my time is based on what I learned in a small local bike shop in high school.

Super Dave and I drove directly to Lucky Bikes from the ride in Buffalo Creek and set up the Vanagon as Conation’s expo tent. It worked better than I could have possibly imagined, and I’m going to try to never put up the 10×10 tent again.

We met some awesome people and hopefully raised awareness of a great organization, and we did that with a bike ride all in one day. Pretty solid start to the weekend.

Denver is one of those places where a litany of adventures are all within a few hours. Want to trail run in the morning and get back in time for a concert? No problem. What about backcountry ski a 14er and then lounge by the pool all afternoon. Alpine starts make that totally manageable.

Friday night was Cinco de Mayo so I rolled around to a couple spots in town, grabbed some food and hung out with friends. Since tequila hangovers aren’t my favorite way to wake up, I decided to cut my evening short and roll up to Buffalo Creek where we were having a going away party for Shep. Shep’s been in the Colorado bike scene forever, wrenching for some of the top mountain bike pros in the world and constantly surprising us with his Encyclopedia Brown-like factoids.

With James, Super Dave, Alders, Shep’s brother, myself, Shep, and Shep’s girlfriend all fed, it was time for a ride. I don’t know Buff Creek very well so I figured I’d just hang on Shep’s and Alders’ wheels so I could follow their fun lines. Alders has been riding for Yeti for years, so I was pretty stoked when we got to the top and I was still cruising around behind him.

Back at camp we took our time packing up, enjoying the company and the woods and the ride. Conation had a spot at the Lucky Bikes Friendraiser that afternoon so Dave and I left as the party broke up, and headed back to the Front Range.

They say you can tell it’s Spring time in Moab when the license plates turn green, referencing the influx of Coloradans spending mud season in the desert. We have a lot of fond memories of Moab, including testing the first round of Conation prototypes out there, but we wanted to do something new and different on this trip. When the idea of skiing the La Sals was introduced, we packed up the Vanagon with an obscene amount of gear and headed west.

To me, commuter bikes are a utility. I need to be able to lock it outside a bar and not worry if I come back a day later. I’ve accepted that traffic accidents are not an “if” but “when” and I’d rather sacrifice my bike than my body. And riding every single day, no matter how good of a mechanic you are, is rough on components.

But… I do love cool bikes. So when we met the guys from Container Collective that make bamboo bikes, I decided to jump into one of their workshops. Building your own frame from a couple tubes of bamboo, some carbon fiber strands, and – let’s be honest – a metric ton of epoxy is a really cool experience.

The bike’s not built yet, the frame’s not even clear-coated, but I’m real excited to cruise through town on such a unique ride. If you’re in the area and interested in building one of your own, give Russ a shout. He seems to have infinite patience, and at the very least there’s a super cute puppy in the shop.

Any recommendations on a build kit? I’m thinking two-speed kickback coaster with a flat bar and full fenders.

Last weekend was the annual gathering of bike porn fetishists known as the North American Handbuilt Bike Show. It’s an eclectic gathering of every corner of the bike industry, all hand made, all passion, all personality. Of course there was a modern penny farthing. Colorado was well represented with bamboo commuters with 2-speed kickback hubs from the Container Collective, titanium full suspension from Moots, carbon fiber road rockets from Alchemy, and the uniquely retro museum pieces on display from The Pro’s Closet.

Getting there

I packed up the Vanagon and set out for Salt Lake City early Thursday morning, scooping Steven from VeloZephyr along the way in Boulder. We got a relaxed start, following the ingrained Spring training route out to Carter Lake before heading out to 285 and taking the scenic way to Laramie. It was beautiful, but slow. By Laramie I was excited for the highway, even if the van only does 60mph on a good day.

Unfortunately this wasn’t a good day, and we soon had to content with a stuttering engine. I drove like that for a bit, but it kept getting worse and eventually we pulled over in Rawlings. Some interneting revealed that it probably had something to do with the archaic fuel injection system and wasn’t something we wanted to mess with hours from home. I had less-than-positive association with Rawlings already from my bike tour to Yellowstone, so I wasn’t surprised when the van died and wouldn’t restart pulling into a grocery store. After a half hour it started enough that we limped to a Walmart parking lot and begrudgingly went to sleep.

We tried driving again in the middle of the night, got sidelined once more, and eventually made it to the convention center with 20 minutes before the show opened. Whoohooo! Steven helped throw the booth together, we had jams cranking from a local radio station that had the booth next to us, and a copious amount of caffeine from the boys at Reeb Cycles had us ready to go.

All the cool things at NAHBS

The show was awesome – we got a great reception and had a lot of conversations with people interested in American-made bike gear. I wish I had some sort of “All the cool things at NAHBS” recap, but the downside of a lot of attention is that I barely got to leave the booth.

After the show, in a perfect visual analogy, we packed up the 30-year old Vanagon in a sea of brand new Mercedes Sprinters. But while most of them were racing back to the office, or off to the next expo show, we were headed to Fruita to ride bikes!

18 Road

It seemed the van would drive about 4 hours without incident, and since Fruita is halfway between SLC and Denver it struck us as a great opportunity to ride. We got there pretty late and cruised up 18 Road to a secluded camp spot for our quietest, though coldest, evening of the trip. In the morning we rolled to the trailhead, took a couple business calls from the newly dubbed “mobile office,” and then met up with the guys from Ground Up Speed Shop and their mind-melting glitter-painted bikes. They’re like the Schwinn Homegrown’s Bass Boat finish turned up to 11.

Some quick laps on Joes and Zippity made for a perfect morning before settling back into the van. Even though we were still 5 hours away, the road between Moab and Denver feels as familiar as the roads in my neighborhood. The van wasn’t stoked about Vail Pass or Eisenhower Tunnel, but with some good karma from picking up a hitch hiker we evenually made it home to sleep in our beds Monday night.

Last weekend my friend James sent out an invite for some bike riding and van camping in Buffalo Creek. I worked with James at a shop in Boulder for a bunch of years, and though it’s still winter here in Colorado we get a couple opportunities to run up to the mountains during surprisingly warm spells so I took him up on the offer.

On the way out of town I learned I had just missed Dane and Alders up there, but they’ve done some work with us so I’ll shamelessly plug them anyway. Check out DaneCroninPhotography.com and BryanAlders.com. (Do it.) Instead, I picked up my buddy Jaden and his dog Fischer, because the only thing that makes mountain bike camping trips better are dogs and more friends.

James and Shep were posted up around a campfire when we arrived, relaxing after a long ride that day. I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve hung out with Shep, at least a couple years, but as I rolled down the window to get a better view of where I wanted to stop the car he calls out “Just park the fucking van!” Strange as it may seem, there’s something comforting about that level of harassment.

We spent the night hanging out by the fire, listening to Shep’s encyclopedic knowledge of everything from TSA to metallurgy, before leaving him to fend for himself in a tent as we all retired to vans.

In the morning we kitted up after breakfast, and I was quite happy I had brought a Merino Tee jersey as a base layer under the Western Shirt Jersey cause it was a bit chilly. Once we were riding though the temp was perfect. I’m loving riding my Waltworks singlespeed during the winter and it was ideally geared for the trails we were on.

With a good ride under our belts I packed up and enjoyed the beautiful drive back to the Front Range.

Matt’s grandparents got a Volkswagon Vanagon a couple years after he was born and it’s been in the family ever since. It hadn’t run in about a decade, but he was really excited about reviving it so after a stunning investment of time and money it now seems to be moving fairly well.

The last major issue is that it has the original paint which has seen better days. Instead of painting over it, we’re planning to put a vinyl wrap over the whole thing and looking for design ideas. Do you have some? Shoot us an email at info@conationcollective.com and we’ll get you the details. There’s no limit to submissions, and if your design ends up on the Vanagon you’ll get a fresh new Conation Collective kit (shorts, liner, and jersey)!

We’ll be putting the designs up for review in the next couple weeks so stay tuned for voting!